Hatching...

I have been going nearly nuts in my office as I keep hearing chicks cheeping. I can never rest when I hear a chick cheeping especially if it is only one and there is no answering cluck for it means that there is a chick somewhere nearby that needs a Mum.

I am sure that before I had children I couldn’t give a toss but after having them there is a kind of desperation that finds me hunting chicks high and low all about the place and putting them back with their frequently unimpressed parent.

But I have no chicks about the farm at present because the rats have eaten them all. So where could the cheeping be coming from? I opened my office window to hear better but of course there was silence. I narrowed my eyes at the Starlings and wondered if they were playing tricks again. Starlings are great jokers and just love mimicking all sorts of noises from telephones to car alarms just for the joy of seeing us humans running about getting confused. It’s a superiority thing.

The looked the picture of innocence coupled with the fact that I could still here the cheeping but the Starlings weren’t moving their beaks unless of course they can now throw their voices…

I retreated back into the office and then decided to turn the eggs in the incubator, and the source of the noise was immediately clear, the eggs are hatching. You notice a tiny hole and can just make out a little black beak and that is where the noise emanates from. It is called pipping. And the noise is just that a pip. Once one starts to pip it is a call to all the others to start as well and before you know it you have a whole clutch of eggs singing to each other as the chicks within start to make their way out. It is rather wonderful.

So now I am sitting here trying to work and resist the temptation to sit and stare at the chicks as they hatch. Wondering what will emerge and how many. It is a tricky time for us all and not at all conducive for work!